‘Gastrosexuals’ find true love in kitchen

Two clerks were chatting behind the cooking store counter over soft rock music when a gruff, gray-bearded man burst through the doorway.

“Cooking oils?” he asked.

One clerk jumped off his stool and led him to the baking display at Goods for Cooks, a cookware store located downtown.

This man was one of eight people who browsed the cooking store in one hour. Five were men.

Surprising? Not to cooking experts.

A recent study by British food company PurAsia found that a growing number of men are taking up cooking as a hobby and using their skill in the kitchen to impress friends and potential partners. Though it can’t be found in Webster’s Dictonary yet, there’s a term for this group of 25- to 44-year-old men: gastrosexual. Incidentally, Dr. Paul Levy, the same mastermind behind the term “foodie,” coined this label, too.

Andrew Appel, owner of Goods for Cooks, acknowledged the increasing number of male cooks and attributed much of the change to the popularity of food television.

“The common thread is, ‘I saw Alton Brown do this,’” Appel said.

According to the study, the time men spend in the kitchen has increased to more than five times the amount spent in 1961, from an average of five minutes to 27 minutes per
day. Just more than half of men surveyed said they consider cooking to be a hobby
rather than a chore, while only 40 percent of women agreed.

While it is said that the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach, the tables have started to turn. Twenty-three percent of 18- to 34-year-old men said they cook to seduce a partner.

Marissa Minelli, 28, said she knows the feeling. An employee at Restaurant Tallent, she met her husband of six months, Bobby Minelli, at the dining spot three and a half years ago.

Bobby Minelli heated up the romance by cooking for her.

“He invited me over every Sunday and cooked an elaborate meal,” Marissa Minelli said. “He knew he’d have me around the whole day, because we’d start eating around two and wouldn’t get done until midnight.”

David Wade, owner of the Inner Chef, a cooking store in downtown Bloomington, estimated about half of his customers are men who fit the demographic of a gastrosexual. To ease the minds of those males less open in their love for cooking,
Wade has a subtle strategy.

“The first thing you see when you walk through the doors is a Craftsman toolkit, and it’s filled with knives,” Wade said. “I put that there as a comfort.”

Wade, like Appel, called on the emergence of cooking shows with men behind the counter as a key contributor. In addition, the altering of traditional male and female roles plays a part.

“Women in the workforce probably started the whole thing,” Wade said. “I think there is that partnership.”

But for Mark Jennings, a 33-year-old employee of Bloomingfoods Market and Deli, cooking was simply more sensible.

“I started cooking because of the practical side – saving money,” Jennings said.

However, don’t think this gastrosexual hasn’t impressed any special someones with his skills.

“I’m sure I’ve used it to my advantage before,” Jennings said with a laugh. “From what I’ve heard, women like men who cook.”